Juno Completes Tenth Science Orbit of Jupiter

This image of Jupiter’s southern hemisphere was captured by
NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it performed a close flyby of the gas giant planet on
Dec. 16.

Juno captured this color-enhanced image at 10:24 a.m. PST
(1:24 p.m. EST) when the spacecraft was about 19,244 miles (30,970 kilometers)
from the tops of Jupiter’s clouds at a latitude of 49.9 degrees south — roughly
halfway between the planet’s equator and its south pole. Citizen scientist Gerald
Eichstädt processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager.

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt

Juno accomplished a close flyby over Jupiter’s churning
atmosphere on Wednesday, Feb. 7, successfully completing its tenth science
orbit. The closest approach was at 6:36 a.m. PST (9:36 a.m. PST) Earth-received
time. At the time of perijove (the point in Juno's orbit when it is closest to
the planet's center), the spacecraft will be about 2,100 miles (3,500
kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops.

This flyby was a gravity science orientation pass. During
orbits that highlight gravity experiments, Juno is in an Earth-pointed orientation
that allows both the X-band and Ka-Band transmitter to downlink data in
real-time to one of the antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network in Goldstone,
California. All of Juno’s science instruments and the spacecraft’s JunoCam were
in operation during the flyby, collecting data that is now being returned to
Earth.